Heiresses

New York Times bestselling author Laura Thompson returns with Heiresses,a fascinating look at the lives of heiresses throughout history and the often tragic truth beneath the gilded surface. Heiresses: surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be enviedwith their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wifeΓÇÖs inheritance was the property of her husbandmaking her vulnerable to kidnapforced marriageseven confinement in an asylum. And in modern timesheiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions. Heiresses tells the stories of these million dollar babies: Mary Davieswho inherited LondonΓÇÖs most valuable real estateand was bartered from the age of twelve; Consuelo Vanderbiltthe original American ΓÇ£Dollar HeiressΓÇ¥forced into a loveless marriage; Barbara Huttonthe Woolworth heiress who married seven times and died almost penniless; and Patty Hearstheiress to a newspaper fortune who was arrested for terrorism. Howeverthere are also stories of independence and achievement: Angela Burdett-Couttswho became one of the greatest philanthropists of Victorian England; Nancy Cunardwho lived off her mother’s fortune and became a pioneer of the civil rights movement; and Daisy Felloweselegant linchpin of interwar high society and noted fashion editor. Heiresses is about the lives of the richwhoΓÇöas F. Scott Fitzgerald saidΓÇöare ΓÇÿdifferentΓÇÖ. But it is also a bigger story about how all women fought their way to equalityand sometimes even found autonomy and fulfillment.